Paranormal Thread

[Emil]

We lived in a fairly old house up until about a year and a half ago that was allegedly haunted by the spirit of two men until my mom called for a psychic to clean the place up.

I personally never witnessed any real signs of ghosts besides what I initially dismissed as old house being old house: cold spots, weak lights, noises, the feeling of someone's presence and cigarette smell.

The last one is kinda funny because my mom smokes, even to this day, but she quit smoking indoors and started doing it outside at one point, making the stench seem a bit out of place as time passed. We tried cleaning upstairs but the stench would not go away. So we eventually gave up.

The ghosts apparently had a liking for my sister so the phenomena would be more common in her bedroom. According to the psychic this was due to some protective nature. This in turn made her sleep very uneasy. But yeah, they weren't malevolent at all.

My mother told me about this one time when a friend of her came to visit one afternoon, and while they were chatting it up in the living room her friend noticed someone's silhouette in the decorative mirror hanging on the wall and froze up in fear. She initially thought it was my dad, but looking closer it wasn't, as he was out working night shift taxi driving. After she told my mom, she decided it was time to do something about it and got a psychic on the line. You can guess what happened next.


I'm gonna be straight with you though, I still have my doubts of it being actually something paranormal of nature, though my mother is adamant about all this being real. It's in the past so it doesn't matter now though.

[Lacunae Seff]

My sister dreamed of my mother's house. We joke about because what where the chances the stuff from that house came back after a decade and across the country? Then I dream about it a month later. Get this slight feeling that maybe they are not just dreams, again, because it was like being back in the house, getting paralized and tormented by shadows.
So I go searching for answers. Bless the internet.
I realized that I took two flower last time I went to visit my mother. One for me, one for my sister.
Remove flowers.
All fear of sleeping disappears :/ All dreams go back to being silly normal dreams.
:v burn the crops, salt the ground!!! I feel for that house, what the house feels for me (and my sister apparently).
Maybe if we leave the country e.e

[Juniper]

Oh boy I just realized because this is the paranormal thread that means it's fair game to talk about Cryptozoology. It's a subject I've been pretty enthusiastic about since I was a little one.

My first Cryptid I was pretty enthusiastic about was El Chupacabra, but right now I'm mostly pretty fond of Mothman and Ningen. Actually, with currently staying by Lake Michigan, which is where just about all sightings of Michigan's local Cryptid, the Michigan Dogman occur. On the Wisconsin side of Lake Michigan he's been called the beast of bray road. I actually know people who claim to have had encounters with him.

[Róisín]

Where I am now, and where I used to live in Gippsland and the Snowies, our cryptofauna is mostly big cats, some of which may or may not be released American mascot pumas from troops stationed here in WW2, relict Tasmanian tigers (Thylacine), feral cats or dogs grown huge (John Walmsley of Warrawong Sanctuary used to have over his fireplace the skin of such a cat which he had shot, which was easily six feet long, and I've seen cats as big in the Dandenongs and the Snowies.). Relict Thylacoleo (marsupial lions) have also been suggested, but I've no idea how possible that is, they are meant to be extinct.

The Merigalah Monster, from the mountains in NSW, I suspect to be another big cat, what sort I've no idea, but I have seen one of its fresh kills. That was a big buck kangaroo, neck cleanly broken, back scratched up, guts and part of the shoulder eaten. We were very careful about our camp that night, I can tell you! That country is so wild, precipitous and broken up that anything could be in there.

The so-called Tantanoola Tiger, when somebody finally shot it, turned out to be an ancient and mangy Siberian wolf. How it got to southern Australia I've no idea, but Tantanoola being on the Shipwreck Coast, quite likely it came from a wrecked ship. The wolf was stuffed and was in the Tantanoola pub for years. But that country was at the time so empty that it may well have passed unnoticed, had it not started killing sheep, poor thing.

Ask Purple Wyrm about cryptofauna, I believe he also has an interest in the subject.

[Purple Wyrm]

Oh boy I just realized because this is the paranormal thread that means it's fair game to talk about Cryptozoology. It's a subject I've been pretty enthusiastic about since I was a little one.

My first Cryptid I was pretty enthusiastic about was El Chupacabra, but right now I'm mostly pretty fond of Mothman and Ningen. Actually, with currently staying by Lake Michigan, which is where just about all sightings of Michigan's local Cryptid, the Michigan Dogman occur. On the Wisconsin side of Lake Michigan he's been called the beast of bray road. I actually know people who claim to have had encounters with him.

I'm quite fond of the Mapinguary myself, although our local cryptozoological mystery is whether there are platypuses up in the hills. They're not native to this side of the continent, but people sometimes claim to see them. They're probably just seeing water rats, but there was one failed attempt to introduce platypuses so there may have been other undocumented ones that worked.

People also sometimes see Thylacines, and there are black panthers all over the place.

Ask Purple Wyrm about cryptofauna, I believe he also has an interest in the subject.

Yes, yes I do

[Juniper]

Relic thylacaines was another one I was pretty interested in for a while, especially because some pretty credible people like senators and such have had sightings of them. I think I heard somewhere that despite all the sightings, some of which are pretty credible, even if there are a few thylacines hanging around they're still technically classified as extinct because there wouldn't be enough of them to sustain the population. I really hope there are thylacine still out there, what a neat animal.

Mapingaury is neat, but if you do a google image search of it you get some really, um, interesting art x3 but I think the same goes for any Cryptid, people like to make really odd art of them for some reason ?

Róisín is probably right, a lot of cryptids can probably be explained by large displaced predators wanderings too close to human territory.

I almost forget some of my favorite really spooky cryptids such as the 'Enfield Horror' or 'Am Fear Liath Mòr' actually, the Enfield Horror incident wasn't too far from me, and I'd think about that sometimes when I'd work the night shifts until 3am then had to walk home through the woods alone . .

[princeofdoom]

my favorite cryptids are the ones we KNOW existed and it's just a matter of whether they still do, like thylacines and such. my favorite is the Japanese wolf. there's actually two species called Japanese wolves, the Hokkaido and Honshu wolves from those respective islands. but they were both completely separate species of wolf than the grey wolf or any other lesser species of wolves. in folk tales, they were said to be able to hide behind a single blade of grass or take the forms of humans, and there's an anime series called Wolf's Rain that was based on the idea that they lived among humans by appearing human.

people still report seeing them even though the one that supposedly went extinct later hasn't had a confirmed sighting since the early 1900's.

[Blackfrost]

Oh boy I just realized because this is the paranormal thread that means it's fair game to talk about Cryptozoology. It's a subject I've been pretty enthusiastic about since I was a little one.

My first Cryptid I was pretty enthusiastic about was El Chupacabra, but right now I'm mostly pretty fond of Mothman and Ningen. Actually, with currently staying by Lake Michigan, which is where just about all sightings of Michigan's local Cryptid, the Michigan Dogman occur. On the Wisconsin side of Lake Michigan he's been called the beast of bray road. I actually know people who claim to have had encounters with him.

If one's referring to Michigan, one shouldn't forget Detroit's infamous denizen:  The Nain Rouge.  Detroit's made something of an icon of him, these past few years, but his history is interesting enough.

And, of course, Michigan has its share of Bigfoot sightings, and other sightings.

F'instance, what sort of cryptid, when cut, bleeds silver?  To the point where silver can actually be extracted from the blood (or spoor) through chemical processing?  (Don't ask me for the answer. I don't know it.)

[Blackfrost]

I've seen some interesting and supposedly impossible things, in my time.  Running into my dead grandmother at the door to her apartment, right after her funeral, was...remarkable.  So said the person I was with, who saw her as well.

I've recently moved (perhaps temporarily, perhaps permanently) to North Georgia (which is to say Southern Appalachia) in the U.S.  The land here (the infamous Red Georgia Clay) feels very different from the glacier-carved geology of the North or the water-carved valleys of the Pacific Northwest, or the extinct ocean of the Mojave desert.  It's old, and it's very high in iron content (and a couple of silicates.)  Any road, the land hereabouts is being torn-up and "developed" without either respect or regard, and it feels furiously angry.  Its anger is palpable, and it seems to be affecting the way folks behave in the local area, too, as if it bleeds over into their emotional state.  (Which wouldn't be surprising if one believed in such things.)

As to seeing things that aren't supposed to be there, I mostly just feel the anger, although if one goes farther North, where things aren't getting torn-up, the land feels quite pleasant.  My girlfriend, though, keeps seeing the same fox, carrying the same dead rabbit in its jaws, crossing a local street, and the parking lot where she works.  She insists it's the exact same fox, and the exact same rabbit, and she gets the sense that the thing is smirking at her when it appears.

[Juniper]

If one's referring to Michigan, one shouldn't forget Detroit's infamous denizen:  The Nain Rouge.  Detroit's made something of an icon of him, these past few years, but his history is interesting enough.

And, of course, Michigan has its share of Bigfoot sightings, and other sightings.

F'instance, what sort of cryptid, when cut, bleeds silver?  To the point where silver can actually be extracted from the blood (or spoor) through chemical processing?  (Don't ask me for the answer. I don't know it.)

Aha I've never heard of the Nain Rouge until now, of course I find out about this thing just days after moving to the Detroit area. It sounds so similar to the Mothman, it comes and announces when something bad is going to happen, not necessarily evil, perhaps good and protective in its nature to warn us of upcoming doom ?

And your story of your girlfriend seeing the fox and the rabbit actually gave me chills.

[Kelpie]

I've recently moved (perhaps temporarily, perhaps permanently) to North Georgia (which is to say Southern Appalachia) in the U.S.  The land here (the infamous Red Georgia Clay) feels very different from the glacier-carved geology of the North or the water-carved valleys of the Pacific Northwest, or the extinct ocean of the Mojave desert.  It's old, and it's very high in iron content (and a couple of silicates.)  Any road, the land hereabouts is being torn-up and "developed" without either respect or regard, and it feels furiously angry.  Its anger is palpable, and it seems to be affecting the way folks behave in the local area, too, as if it bleeds over into their emotional state.  (Which wouldn't be surprising if one believed in such things.)

As to seeing things that aren't supposed to be there, I mostly just feel the anger, although if one goes farther North, where things aren't getting torn-up, the land feels quite pleasant.  My girlfriend, though, keeps seeing the same fox, carrying the same dead rabbit in its jaws, crossing a local street, and the parking lot where she works.  She insists it's the exact same fox, and the exact same rabbit, and she gets the sense that the thing is smirking at her when it appears.

As someone from the described area, I don't know about the land, but seeing all the woodlands torn up for McMansions sure does make my blood boil. Most of them end up out of money and thus have like three houses in them and a bunch of paved roads to nowhere. In general I think I do understand what you mean about it oozing into people's emotional state, because I want to get out of here as fast as I can, and as soon as you hit the mountains a few hours north I do agree it is a much calmer and peaceful place.

I've had something of a similar nature to the fox happen, I once saw three identical black cats run one after the other across the street. They looked exactly the same, their pace identical. I had never seen three black cats in the area before, and never since. Nothing like the smirking though, that sounds pretty freaky. But then I've also seen floating orb lights in the woods around my house, and supposedly when she was little my older sister talked about the people in the street when there was no one there, so I guess my neighborhood is just weird. In town I also once saw a very tall and thin dark figure (think murderghost but not hostile in any way, just kinda there) walking in the opposite direction down the street in a window reflection. The town is very old and used to be a native American settlement, so I just assume it was something to do with that.

[Róisín]

Blackfrost: possibly your girlfriend could tell the fox that she isn't part of the problem (unless of course she is, in which case being somewhere else might be wise). Also ask it why it is showing itself to her, is there anything she is supposed to do, or anything she needs to know about. And is she sure it is a fox and not a coyote?

[Blackfrost]

Blackfrost: possibly your girlfriend could tell the fox that she isn't part of the problem (unless of course she is, in which case being somewhere else might be wise). Also ask it why it is showing itself to her, is there anything she is supposed to do, or anything she needs to know about. And is she sure it is a fox and not a coyote?

Her comment is that she doesn't think the fox was particularly aware of her presence.  It definitely wasn't a coyote.  She knows coyotes well, by sight.  (Of course, Trickster comes in more than one guise.)  I've passed your recommendations on to her, though, and thank you for them.  My ex-wife, who's had Shamanic training (no, really, she has.) says that both animals might well be totems for her, and that if she sees them a third time she'd be fairly certain of it.  We'll see what, if anything, comes of it.

[Róisín]

Ah? What sort of shamanic training, if I may ask? My own background is a mix of Celtic, with bits of other stuff overlaid on it depending who I'm working with, and, yeah, some shamanic stuff.

[Blackfrost]

Ah? What sort of shamanic training, if I may ask? My own background is a mix of Celtic, with bits of other stuff overlaid on it depending who I'm working with, and, yeah, some shamanic stuff.

South American, and some U.S. Native American.  (Either Klamath or Paiute, but I believe Klamath.  Note that I could be mis-remembering the latter.)